apollo 17 launched 40 years ago today, december 7, 1972. it was a night launch, aiming for the littoral valley. gene cernan, harrison jack schmitt and ron evans aboard. apollo 17 launched at night, and when they landed three days later, the sun was behind them. and so that particular launch trajectory put a fully formed beautifully lit earth in the window of the command module at a time when the astronauts really should have been too busy to look at it. here is how al reinert, who co-wrote the movie "apollo 13" describes what happened. quote, at five hours and a few minutes into the flight of apollo 17, one of the crewmen looked out the window. what he saw inspired him to grab the only camera that wasn't stowed and snap a picture. but whoever did it said nothing on the radio or to their crewmates about it. it is possible they did it instinctively, hardly ever thinking about it because none of them thought to mention it for weeks. reinert doesn't say which of the three took the picture, partly because nasa gives all three credit for it, and